s most instructive and valuable work on the
Ethnology of the Indian Tribes of Guatemala (Internationales Archiv fuer
Ethnographie, band I, supplement I, 1888): "A road leads [from the ancient
city of Guatemala] to a hill [figured with a large tree growing from it];
on its top there is a flat circular cement floor, enclosed by a low wall.
In the centre is a pedestal, polished and shining like glass. No one knows
of what substance it is made. This was the tribunal or court of the
Cakchiquel Indians, where public trials were held and where the sentences
were executed. The judges sat in a circle on the low wall. After the
sentence had been pronounced, it had to be confirmed or vetoed by another
authority. Three messengers, acting as deputies of the council, went to a
deep ravine situated to the north of the palace, where, in a sort of
hermitage or prayer-house, there was the oracle of the devil, which was a
black, transparent stone, like glass, but more costly than [ordinary]
obsidian. In this stone the devil revealed to the messengers, the sentence
to be executed. If it agreed with the judgment pronounced, this was
immediately executed upon the central pedestal [of the hill of justice] on
which the criminal was also tortured, at times." If nothing was seen in
the mirror, and it gave no sign, the prisoner was pronounced free.

This oracle was also consulted before wars were undertaken ... "During the
first years of the Spanish occupation, when the bishop Marroquin heard
about this stone, he had it cut out and consecrated it as an altar, which
is still in use in the convent of San Francisco in the capital. It is a
precious stone of great beauty and is half a vara long."

A picture in the Vatican Codex B (p. 48) represents a temple, on the
summit of which a large obsidian mirror is standing on its edge. Inside
the doorway there are many small black spots, which obviously represent
small mirrors and convey the idea that the interior walls were incrusted
with such. These illustrations would prove that sacred edifices were
associated with obsidian mirrors even if Sahagun did not mention, as he
does (book II, appendix), no less than three sacred edifices in the great
temple of Mexico, which were associated with obsidian mirrors. It is,
moreover, stated by Duran that "in Mexico the image of the god
Tezcatlipoca was a stone, which was very shining and black, like jet. It
was of the same stone of which the natives make razors and kni